It’s always interesting when the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons get together, but this year’s first meeting has some extra intrigue, with Curtis Lofton battling his ex-teammates in his new home. Oh, and the Saints are trying to keep their heads above water against the league’s last unbeaten team.

Curtis Lofton joined Mayhem in the AM on 790 The Zone in Atlanta to discuss how he feels about playing his former team, the notion that he wasn’t fully appreciated in Atlanta, the struggles the Saints have had this season, any tips he might be able to offer his new team about his old one and what he sees in Matt Ryan this year. He also addressed his own performance thus far and stated that he still thinks the Saints are a playoff team.

On if he’s nervous to face his former team:

“I’m definitely not nervous. I’ve been playing football a long time and I’ve played in a lot of big games, and I’ll just be ready for this one.”

On if he feels he wasn’t appreciated in Atlanta:

“I feel like that in a way.”

On the notion that they wouldn’t let him go if they had appreciated him:

“You’re right about that.”

On if the Saints embrace their players in a different way:

“I would say so. The Saints is just about all New Orleans has. People live and die by the Saints. When everything’s going good, everything’s good. Anything goes bad, the whole town just feels the hit of the game. And they all love the players, and they’re back behind this football team like no other.”

On what’s been wrong with the Saints’ defense thus far:

“We play a lot of good football, but at the same time, when you got 10 guys doing it right and one guy doing it wrong, that leads to big plays. Right now, big plays is killing us. We’ve got to get that out of our game.”

On how grades himself thus far:

“I’d probably say B-plus. I feel like I’ve been playing pretty consistent, playing solid. I can’t give myself an A because I feel like there’s still a lot of work for myself to be done.”

On if the Saints are a playoff team:

“I think we’re definitely a playoff team, but right now I’m not really too worried about playoffs. We gotta win games and take care one game at a time before we can even be mentioned in the same sentence as playoffs.”

On if he can help his new team from a game-planning perspective as a former Falcon:

“No. … They got a new offensive coordinator, new defensive coordinator, so there’s not really too much I can help there. I can help with personnel and that area, but anything else, no. You’d have to get it from the film.”

On what he’s seen from Matt Ryan this year that’s different from years past:

“He’s running that no-huddle more efficiently and it looks like he has more freedom to control the game more.”